I just checked and there have been 294 views of this thread since yesterday. So, why have only seven people said a word? Is it just easier to fade into the background and not get involved? I know it's difficult...

Y'all, some of the comments in this thread are unabashedly racist and *some* are unforgivably ignorant.

:(

As to Erik, most of us have known for a long time that he is racist, and he frequently makes sexist comments as well. We have called him out on it numerous times when he makes off color comments. People want to excuse him because he's elderly and in poor health. However, many of us (well, mostly the females... the people making excuses for him tend to be male) have called him out on it frequently, to no avail.

As to Alphafrog, she doesn't quite have the history that Erik does, so I don't know what to say.

A couple people's true colors have been seen in this thread... well, for one of them, we knew exactly what he was for a long time anyway.

I'm really not trying to be racist, but it really bothers me when someone in 2006 can talk about being a slave in the first person, and then in the same breath, wonder why everyone isn't colorblind. It's great that you feel close to your heritage, but you can't talk about it like it happened to you. I took a class in college about the Holocaust, taught by the President of the university whose parents both survived concentration camps, but he never said anything like "When we were in the camps...". I know being Jewish is different then being black, but I can't think of any other comparison to express what I mean.

If someone has tea, I'll take a glass. I'm hungover as balls and can't take anything sweet right now but some dull tea would probably make me feel a bit better.

Oh because you've never been too much. :rolleyes:

Thank your for that, because I didn't know. Very honestly if I had known I would not have posted a response.

The bottom line is you don't know how old I am and what I have experienced personally. When my great grandmother talked about slavery, yes I felt it personally. And when growing up I encountered physical abuse because of the color of my skin, and yes it affected me personally.

Jewish people still have white skin and can assimilate if they so choose. I respect those who both do and do not, because I understand why those who do, do. But the bottom line is my skin is brown and I cannot .

So for you to tell me I can't speak in the voice of my ancestors is ludicrous. Because I still live it every day.

Weeeeeeellllllllllll
*waving my church fan*

I am responding to the room in general about pike and about my feelings on the moteesir discussion.

P.S.

I am black and although I do feel that the society in general (us include) are still racist. I do feel as though sometimes we use it as a crutch. It seems as though we often place blame on others rather than do it ourselves. Now, I am in no way justifying racism or saying that is non exsistent, just saying that when will we stop complaining and start doing in spite of.

What room?

I think you meant to post in the other thread about Pike at Howard.

Amen!!!

I am a generation behind LadyGreek and thus another generation from the shadow of slavery, but having read and seen movies depicting slavery, I still use the first person plural pronoun when talking about slavery.

I was never in the Civil Rights Movement either but I again use the first person plural pronoun.

I really am tired of slavery being compared to the Holocaust. I know both are periods of time of hardship, persecution, and such, but the experiences were different.

You're right, I don't know how old you are, but I don't believe there are any living men or women who were slaves.
Assimilation has nothing to do with skin color. It's about customs, and culture, not about color.
If you speak as a slave, you are giving people like Erik license to treat you as one. Perception is a HUGE part of racism. If you want to be percieved as a slave, go ahead, but then don't get bent out of shape because people aren't colorblind. As the saying goes "You can't have your cake and eat it too".

And before I get further accused of being racist, I do have friends that are black, and I don't think of them any different then my white or hispanic friends, or for that matter, my Mexican husband.

It's not just the Holocaust; it's the pogroms throughout Europe, it's the Islamic fundamentalists wanting to exterminate the Jews etc.

and
We do exactly what ladygreek did all the time, especially for rhetorical or symbolic purposes. It's simply identifying with the larger group of which one is a part. By saying "we," she identifies with those African-Americans, including her ancestors, who have gone before. How many of us have used "we" to refer to things our GLO did long before we came along? ("We chartered our second chapter in 1900")

When we sing the national anthem, we sing about "what so proudly we hailed . . . o'er the ramparts we watched," although I doubt any of us were in Baltimore during the war of 1812. We mean "we" as Americans.

As for your professor, he may never had said "we" when he talked about the Holocaust, but I'd be willing to bet that at Passover, he said something along the lines of "With a strong hand the Almighty led us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage."